Summoner: Book 2: The Inquisition (20 page)

‘See this hole, below the stinger?’ Electra asked, using a pair of tongs to hold it steady. ‘The Arach is capable of shooting a sticky, mana-based substance from there, not unlike gossamer.’

She tugged the lantern above her closer and peered at the sodden specimen.

‘We must be careful, the bristles on its body can become detached, floating in the air and irritating its victims’ eyes and skin. Jeffrey tells me that Lord Cavell’s own Arach has already caused a few problems in some of the first year’s lessons, is that not so, Cress?’

‘Aye,’ Cress agreed, scratching at her wrist absent-mindedly. ‘Didn’t stop itching for a week.’

Fletcher shuddered, for the dead creature’s eyes seemed to bore into him. He hated to think what a full-grown Arach would look like, though he had seen diagrams in his demonology lessons. It was poor luck that Didric had one of his own, for it would be a formidable opponent if it ever duelled with Ignatius.

Electra hummed a merry tune to herself as she pushed a tube-like instrument into the orifice beneath the demon’s stinger, as if she were coring an apple. When she drew it out, she was left with a cylinder of slippery organs, which she spread out on the table with the tongs.

‘That is repulsive,’ Rory said, running his hand through his shock of blond, spiky hair. His face lost what little colour it had, and he went to join Genevieve on the edge of the group.

‘Don’t be such a baby,’ Electra muttered, grasping Fletcher by a gloved hand and dragging him in beside her. ‘What do you see there?’

For a moment Fletcher had the mad suspicion that she wanted him to divine the future, as orc shamans claimed to be able to do with the entrails of their enemies. But when he looked closer, he recognised a strange symbol, imprinted in one of the organs like a brand.

‘It’s … a spell symbol,’ Fletcher said, shaking his head with confusion.

‘Yes! Do you even know how spells and etching were first discovered?’ Electra asked, turning so swiftly that the corer dashed a droplet of slime on to Seraph’s cheek. He retched, pawing at his face with his sleeve.

‘Demons have always used their special abilities by channelling their mana through organic symbols within them,’ Electra continued, ignoring Seraph’s moans of disgust. ‘The first summoners must have realised that, dissecting their dead demons as I have just done and copying the symbols down. My mission here is to add to the roster of spells available to our battlemages through my research. It is a long forgotten art, which I have revived. I am not a summoner myself though, which does tend to complicate things.’

She turned to Fletcher and grasped him by the shoulders.

‘Your Salamander, for example, will have the fire symbol somewhere within its throat. If they would just let me teach here, you would all know this!’

She sighed with frustration. Fletcher caught Othello’s eye and they grinned at each other knowingly. Even compared to a zealot like Rook, Electra was obviously a little too eccentric to teach at Vocans.

‘So what’s with all the plants then?’ Fletcher asked, pointing at a large pot with a fearsome looking plant within that resembled a thorny venus flytrap.

‘They’re demons too, technically,’ Electra said, caressing the stem as if it were a long-lost pet. ‘Plants from the ether. I haven’t found a single symbol in any of them, but I have discovered one thing. The petals, roots and leaves of certain species can be made into an elixir which, when drunk, will have useful effects.’

She pointed to a wooden rack of vials nearby – corked test tubes full of red, blue and yellow liquids.

‘Fortunately, Captain Lovett volunteered to test them. This one, when consumed, will heal the drinker of his or her wounds, just like the healing spell. It helped Captain Lovett partially recover from her paralysis.’ She withdrew a vial, swishing the blood-red contents back and forth.

‘And this one will replenish a demon’s mana when its summoner drinks it,’ she continued, pointing to one of the blue vials as she replaced the red one. There was an awkward pause as her hand hovered over the tubes filled with yellow liquid, then she shrugged and turned back to the group.

‘I’ve only just started the plant research, but they’re a good place to start!’ she said brightly.

‘I’ll say,’ Seraph exclaimed. ‘That’s going to give us a real edge!’

‘What about the yellow ones?’ Sylva asked. ‘What do they do?’

Electra frowned and then shrugged with a shake of her head.

‘I have no idea. I know it has
some
effect on
something
, but that’s all. You drink it and feel the rush of something happening, but I haven’t worked out what.’

She slapped Seraph’s hand as he surreptitiously reached for one of the vials. Then the door behind them slammed shut and footsteps could be heard.

‘Ah, Jeffrey’s here,’ Electra said, clapping her hands together. ‘He’s my eyes and ears, you know. Risks life and limb to collect orc demon corpses after there’s a battle in the jungles. It’s
their
species of demons we rarely see in our part of the ether, so they’re more likely to reveal a spell we haven’t discovered yet.’

Fletcher turned to see Jeffrey walking their way, his sunken eyes and unhealthy complexion compounded by the light around them. The servant boy smiled at Fletcher through a thick mop of shaggy brown hair, styled similarly to Fletcher’s own.

‘Of course, his asthma slows him down,’ Electra said, ‘but his knowledge of the jungles will be invaluable to you. I’ve been training him as an alchemist for the past two years too.’

‘Hi everyone.’ Jeffrey waved shyly. ‘I look forward to working with you. I’ve always wanted a chance to contribute, but they wouldn’t let me join, on account of my lungs. Now I can.’

‘Wait,
he’s
going to be our guide?’ Seraph exclaimed.

‘For one of your teams,’ Electra said gruffly, raising her eyebrows at him. ‘Captain Lovett selected him, but thought she would give both of your teams the option to take him. Arcturus has his own choice if you decide to turn him down.’

‘Respectfully, I’m a little worried,’ Othello said, shuffling his feet with embarrassment. ‘If the military doctors said he wasn’t fit for duty on the front line, how can he be ready for a mission this dangerous, deep in the jungle? I thought we would be getting a scout, or a tracker.’

‘I was inclined to agree with you when Jeffrey suggested it to me,’ Electra said. ‘But I concocted him a herbal remedy that relieves his symptoms somewhat and, like I said, he knows the jungle better than even a scout would. He’s studied its ecosystem, the same way I have the ether. Knows what plants to eat, which ones to avoid. He’ll see you right, if you’ll take him.’

‘We have a choice?’ Fletcher asked.

‘Yes. Nobody is forcing you to choose him as your guide, but I know that Captain Lovett has yet to find a second option for your team. If you want my elixirs and the new spells I have discovered, you’ll do it. That deep behind enemy lines, who knows what manner of demons you will encounter. I want an alchemist there,’ Electra replied.

For a moment Fletcher stared at Jeffrey, who stood a little straighter, determination written across his face.

‘I’ll take him,’ Fletcher said.

Fletcher and his team sat around the tavern table, examining the map in front of them.

‘Why are they dropping us in so far from the mission target?’ Othello said, pointing to the far edge of the map, where their drop zone was marked with an X. ‘It will take us days to get there.’

‘It’s probably as close as they can get to the pyramid without being seen,’ Sylva mused, tracing the distance from the front line to the mark with her finger. ‘If we’re spotted being dropped off, then we might as well set off some fireworks to announce our arrival.’

Fletcher watched the debate with his chin in his hands, too tired to add his own speculation. The cart ride into Corcillum had been miserable, drenching them with a thin drizzle that had kept them all silently huddled together, protecting the map and instructions that Rook had handed to them on the way out of Vocans.

When they finally arrived, Othello led them straight to a boarded-up tavern, where he said they could bed down for the night, while Seraph’s team followed Sacharissa, presumably to find whoever Arcturus had chosen as their guide. Lysander also took his leave, launching into flight without any prior warning. Fletcher guessed that Lovett had stopped scrying and the Griffin was eager to return to her side.

The tavern’s rafters hung extremely low, as if designed for dwarves instead of men, and the inside looked as if it had not been disturbed for a long time, with tables and chairs scattered haphazardly around the bar. Othello had lit the few remaining lanterns, but the room stayed gloomy, relying mostly on the moonlight that filtered through the shuttered windows.

‘Where the hell are we anyway?’ Fletcher groaned, wiping his finger along the edge of the table and showing them the dust. ‘It’s filthy in here.’

‘The Anvil Tavern,’ Cress replied, pointing at a sign with the same name and symbol above the door. ‘It’s where the Anvils used to meet, believe it or not. The clue’s in the name.’

She winked at him.

The name was familiar, and Fletcher had a hazy memory of Athol suggesting he go there on his first day in Corcillum, when he gave him the Anvil card that had been used at the trial.

‘I used to come here,’ Jeffrey spoke up, leaving the table and leaning on the bar. He’d barely said a word since they had chosen him as their guide. ‘I was even a junior member, before they became arsonists and this place was shut down. Best beer in all of Corcillum. Worth joining up for that alone.’

‘Dwarf-owned,’ Othello said, his chest swelling with pride. ‘My cousin’s place actually. He said we could use it to prepare for the mission.’

‘The instructions said that the mission starts the day after tomorrow,’ Fletcher said, ignoring them. ‘I’d rather get in some shuteye now, because I don’t think we’ll get much in the jungle. We can sort all this out in the morning.’

‘Actually, Fletcher, you’ll need to stay up a little while longer,’ Othello said, a sheepish smile on his face. ‘We have visitors coming. They’ll be here any minute, with any luck.’

There was a knock on the door, the rat-a-tat-tat making Fletcher jump.

‘Right on cue,’ Othello grinned, running over to the door and throwing it open.

Two figures stood in the doorway. The closest wore long, flowing robes of pink and blue, with twisting flowers embroidered down the centre. Although she wore a veil, from the way Othello hugged her, Fletcher guessed it was Briss, his mother.

Beside her, Athol stood with his hands tucked deep in the pockets of his breeches, a tired but satisfied look upon his face.

‘Would you give us a hand with the goods?’ Athol said, motioning with his head to a boar-pulled cart behind him. It was piled high with packages, and the boar’s sides were soaked with sweat from an arduous journey. ‘Be careful, it’s precious cargo. Might save your life.’

The swarthy dwarf winked at Fletcher, then laughed uproariously as they embraced. Fletcher pounded him on the back while Jeffrey, Sylva and Cress ferried the packages inside and laid them on the table. He had not realised how much he had missed Athol until now.

It did not take long for it all to be unloaded, and Athol gave the boar a slap on the rump with his hand. The animal gave a disgruntled squeal, then trotted away, the cart rumbling behind it.

‘He knows his way back. Smarter than horses, boars,’ Athol said, leaning against a table and plucking his braces with his thumbs. He gave a low whistle as he looked around him.

‘Look at this place,’ he moaned, picking up a discarded tankard from the table behind him and turning it upside down. A thin stream of dust trickled out and he wrinkled his nose.

‘Used to be the best tavern in all of Hominum,’ he grumbled. ‘Soon as the first terror attack happened, it was boarded up and closed. Would have been burned down by some enterprising human otherwise. Damned shame.’

‘What
did
happen?’ Fletcher asked, trying to understand what had changed during his long incarceration. ‘What do the Anvils have to do with these attacks?’

Athol sighed and rubbed his eyes.

‘The Anvils were just humans who were friendly to the dwarves at first,’ he explained, settling down on one of the low benches. ‘Started with a few of them drinking in one of our pubs, because of our beer, of course. Soon we started handing out membership cards to keep out troublemakers, like some of the racist gangs who came looking for a fight. Didn’t take long for them to become something of a gang themselves, making sure their dwarf friends got home safe, demonstrating at dwarven protests, that sort of thing. Nothing violent though. Nothing like what happened.’

Athol paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

‘The first explosion was at one of the demonstrations, after a young dwarf lad was wrongfully arrested,’ Athol continued, a grim expression on his face. ‘Gunpowder and musket balls, packed in a barrel beside the Pinkertons and set off by a long fuse. Took out three of them and ten innocents. Could only have been an Anvil, the investigators said. The barrel had been left out days before to avoid suspicion, and the only people who knew the location of the protest was us and the Anvils. They might have pinned the blame on us dwarves, but a witness saw the bomber running from the scene. Too tall for a dwarf, they said.’